TRANSLATION ORDER

It started with a parking ticket. It will end with the translation of more than 4,000 laws passed in Manitoba between 1890 and 1979 into French. The Supreme Court issued the order to the province in a unanimous decision. Deadline: Not given. Laws remain "temporarily valid." Manitoba had bilingual courts and legislature between 1870 and 1890 but since then official business has been in English. The parking ticket, written in 1979, led to a challenge that resulted in a Supreme Court ruling eliminating bilingual statutes that had been unconstitutional. An attempt by the provincial government to work out an accommodation with its 60,000 French-speaking residents drew such opposition from English-speaking residents that it was dropped. That led to Thursday's order for the translation.